Blues send out message with gift of the Gab
PEP Guardiola needed just three games to confirm what had made City bosses so uncharacteristically excited in the summer of 2016.
Football clubs are regularly involved in transfers, so why the delirium around a relatively unknown 19-year-old Brazilian?
Beating top European clubs to a player is always enjoyable but Gabriel Jesus had already shown in an eight-minute cameo against Spurs on his debut why people were right to be excited by him.
The first goal for his new team a fortnight later to help demolish West Ham with Raheem Sterling and Leroy Sane was enough for his manager to go bold.
“These three guys are the future for this club,” he said.
“The average age is 20 years old. You cannot see strikers as young as those in big European clubs at the moment, so that is good for the future.”
Eighteen months on and there is no evidence to the contrary.
In 27 Premier League starts – deemed as tough for young players to break through in and foreign player to make an immediate impact – Jesus has 18 goals and six assists; he is also yet to taste defeat in the competition. Those statistics are even more remarkable given goalscoring isn’t what he is best at, or why Guardiola and Brazil coach Tite love working with the player so much.
Two of his most impressive performances last season – Chelsea and Stoke away – did not see him on the scoresheet but his contribution helped create an immense team performance.
The 21-year-old has something to prove after a middling World Cup for Brazil and a contingent of Liverpool fans convinced he is a poor man’s Roberto Firmino.
That he has chosen to make his point at the Etihad, having chosen to shelve contract talks in the second half of last season despite the club’s efforts, says a lot.
On signing his improved deal, he said: “I can say that it was the best decision I’ve made in my life to come to Manchester City because whilst I’m here I’m improving as a professional and as a person.”
City’s next actions will be to secure the rest of Guardiola’s future. Sterling has been allowed to enter the final two years of his contract, and the club are also keen to improve Sane’s deal.
As the Premier League season approaches though and teams plot to dethrone the champions, the Jesus announcement serves as a reminder of why this team could break the cycle and dominate the coming years in English football as well as posing their biggest threat in Europe.